SeVeN
by Shadow Knight2
Summary: The seven deadly sins. . . which Slayers character is stained with which? You guess. Just an idea I had to get out of my head.
1. aNgEr

SeveN

Shadow Knight

Chapter 1: aNgEr

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of the Slayers series

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I would kill that wretched creature.

He was the bane of my existence. Looking over the others, I felt a shiver run down my spine, making my fingers twitch and my breath skip. How could they breath the same air he breathed? Everything about him reeked of blood and poison.

My hand shook, and the veins in my hand began to pulsate underneath the thin layer of my skin. The sight of him ate away at my spirit and made me twitch. My whole body responded to him, every thought of pain and killing ever abandoned rushed to me at once. I only saw red. It blinded me from every other thought and feeling.

Only one thought consumed me: Seeing him lying in a pool of his own blood.

I closed my eyes and tried to control my breathing. I blocked out his annoying laugh, that fake smile, those calculating eyes. If I saw them, the carefully fortified wall that I had drawn about myself would collapse. I would do something. . . . horrible. . . but delightful.

Yes, . . . the sound of him screaming would be a symphony, harmonic in every way. It would be the greatest performance ever heard.

Another round of grating laughter made me twitch again, the tea cup in my hand splintering under the force of my taunt muscles. They ached to flex and destroy the sick little bastard.

He had destroyed everything precious to me, and now he looked at me, a knowing smile on his face. A smile that made my losses look like a trivial bother. It was a smile that was to let me know that there was no way I would be able to have my revenge. I would die forever hating him and having nothing to vindicate my pain.

I knew it. I had known it for a long time. It burned inside me whenever the thought was brought upon. There was absolutely no way I would be able to destroy him. A flick of his wrist and I would be gone forever. The memory of my existence, even to my friends, dissembled.

But it didn't matter. I would continue look for a way, even if I died in the process. I would not die giving up. There was no way that I would let that nasty grin conquer me. No way at all.

Even when the others believed I was being too "emotional" around him, I wouldn't let it daunt my mission. If only they knew the destruction and misery his evil brought upon the world. If only they knew the demon that hid behind the smile. Then they'd help. . . but they didn't. And they never would truly know.

He made sure of that.

So, even as I glare at that evil creature, the wheels in my head are turning, contemplating every angle. . . every way to destroy him.

And as for me. . . I will let the anger in my heart consume my being.

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Okay, I know this is kind of odd. But it's just an idea I wanted to get out. It's basically pertaining to the Seven Deadly Sins. I wanted to pick a Slayers character and think of how each would fit in for one of them. Some of these may seem to be off, but I'll try to do my best. If you don't like it, I don't really care. I just wanted to get this out. It's been badgering me forever.

And so, there it is. Can you guess who the first character is?

Ciao. :)


	2. eNvY

SeVeN

Shadow Knight

Chapter 2: eNvY

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of the Slayers characters. They belong to the original author Hajime Kanzaka et al.

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There's something unseemly about the way dreams occur. Everything seems to be in a sharp focus, like your viewing the world with a magnifying glass. Yet, the seams of the picture, your peripheral, all those edges which aren't in immediate view, those parts always a blur, smudged under the artists thumb into an indiscreet smear. But I suppose that's the way life is most of the time, just a blur of events that happen in the background, fading into a steady hum while your life is the rapid tempo, altering at the merest whim of emotion.

Regardless of whether or not I need to change my life lenses, the events that happen in dreams always seem to pop out. They stand stark among the chaos that disrupts the flow of fluttering eyes and tossing movement of sleep. And they call this relaxing.

I hardly find it so.

Most of the time these dreams are a simple spasm of the brain, a quick integration of the day's events, the comment you heard in passing, the face of the passerby mentioning it. . . all a rapid bundle of pictures and noise that don't make any sense. Sometimes they're just mindless, incoherent hiccups of the mind, sifting through your day. And then there's those dreams that mark you, brand you, fill you with that feeling that's not quite awe or surprise.

Oh right.

That one.

Fear.

It's a gnawing feeling that wakes you up with a quick physical jerk. The kind of feeling that leaves your heart racing, even after you realize that your still in your room, safe, alone. But worse of all, it's the kind of dream that brews in your mind like a thick stew, congealing on the surface of all your worries and doubts.

I have one of those dreams.

I can't tell you the details leading up to it (but then again, who can?), but I know I was walking down the hall into the bathroom. It was yet again, another long night. Who knows if everyone else was asleep. But I was still up, my mind still busy with planning the future steps of my own path. I guess the scariest thing about these kinds of dreams is that everything seems so real; everything is in the right place and there's nothing too out of the ordinary.

Until later.

It was about after I stepped into the bathroom that I began to feel like something was seriously wrong, that something had just interrupted the normal flow. I had the strongest impulse tugging at me, so I stopped and turned to my right. As I faced the mirror I saw my reflection staring back at me. Nothing too weird about that.

Until the reflection sneered at me.

Sure, I probably should have walked away and carried on into a hopefully pleasant dream of . . . well. . .whatever, but when do you ever act logically in your dreams? So instead I of course stepped closer, growing all the more surprised as the lips in the reflecting curled even more.

"You're pathetic you know."

That was enough to make me pause.

"No, you heard right. I'm really speaking to you. And yes, I do believe I'm sick with the thought that I'm _your_ reflection."

My mouth was open for a reply, but I was struck. Nothing came to mind or tongue.

"Oh please don't bother to reply for my benefit," cried the reflection with something akin to delight, "I much prefer you this way: silent. It, as always, fits you best. But really, look at you. No wonder you're speechless. You're so weak."

At the moment I decided that while words had failed me, I could still wield violence toward the offending thing. I withdrew my blade from my side and brandished it silently at my reflection. I no longer regarded it simply as a copy image within the glass, but as a beast set for my mental degradation. It couldn't really be my reflection regardless; mine wouldn't laugh like that. Much less laugh at all. But there I was, making a stand where words had failed to raise my mental shield.

Instead of intimidated, the creature encased in its glass world chuckled lowly while waving away at my blade. It was almost as if it were admonishing me as a parent to a clueless child. "Put away that silly toy. As if you even have the strength to truly threaten me with that. Pathetic."

Although I was broiling on the inside, incited by the demon's little searing tongue, I did feel weak before the vision. It held in its very voice a power which seemed to enthrall me and yet appear absolutely repugnant at the same time. As it spoke again, I felt a pull, a physical force that drew me to full attention as it sneered yet again.

"You're weak, disgustingly weak and pitiful. . . But you don't have to be that way. I could give it to you. . power."

The word washed over me like a heavy wave. The word evoked a euphoria like I had never experienced before. It had to be a trick, but I had never experienced anything like this before. My eyes were wide open now as I stared the face with the gleaming eyes. My arms felt heavy beside me and my legs shook with a brief quiver as the word continued to swim through my mind like liquor, spilling quietly over the sober edges of my rationality.

"P. . . power. . .," I tasted the word as it dropped into place on my tongue. It tasted like something sweet, a bite from a fresh fruit, fresh pulp leaking into the crevices between my tongue and teeth. It was a sugar coating adhered to my dried lips. With a quick sweep of my lips with my tongue, I evoked the word again, "Power. . ."

The reflection's eyes grew a shade darker, "Yes, power. And strength. I can give you strength."

"Strength. . ."

My blade clattered to the ground beside me. The vocalization of the second word mesmerized me and gradually echoed into a lustful need. I slowly approached the grinning figure in the mirror. My eyes were wide but in the mirror, there was a calm, refined charm drawing the hooded lids into an amused expression.

"Please," I felt the words break past my dry lips and perfume the air with a desperate plea, "please give me more. I want it. I want it all."

"Agility, endurance, I can give you all these things in addition to strength and power."

My knees felt weak beneath me as I took a step closer, hand half outstretched. I'm not sure what this feeling was that made me seek so desperately for the things the reflection promised. But I knew that the need, the burning and unyielding desire for these things was beyond anything else I had ever known. And I knew one other thing.

I wanted it. . .

I needed it. . .

And I was going to have it.

"Yes," I breathed, "Give it all to me."

The smirk in the mirror grew at my baited breath. "You want these things? So be it," rumbled the voice from behind a upraised hand.

With one eye steadily boring into me from behind the raised hand I was entranced. "First," the reflection spoke, "there's power."

With a smooth, fluid motion the hand in the reflection pulled away from the face. Just then, after all the sickly sweet desire had settled in my belly, the joyous feeling dissipated, dissolving quickly into a mass of revulsion. I stepped back as I saw my "reflection."

"Then there is strength."

Another quick motion made my skin ripple.

"Then there is, of course, agility and endurance."

Dirt embedded fingernails dug into flesh, stretching the skin taut, before a stringy nerve snapped. I stared with a horrid fixation, utterly torn between hiding and striking the mirror in revulsion. A pair of eyes stared at me behind ragged hands, ready to strip another layer.

"But why should we stop there? There's so much more that comes with this deal. We have only scratched the surface of it. Shall we go further?"

My reply should have been screamed, hurled, and stabbed into that grinning face; it should have been resolute and firm, making that sneer come to a resounding stop. But, when I opened my mouth, only a whisper, a mere wisp of the feelings bubbling in my mind ushered forth, ". . no. ."

"No? But we've only begun! And there's so much more to enjoy! Yes. . .," the flesh around those eyes crinkled together in pleasure, "Let's taste the fruits of our labor together!"

"Fear!"

A crowd of people I had never seen were suddenly before me, faces contorted into an expression of confusion. Taking a step forward there was a collective gasp amongst the crowd as they shrank back. Assuming there was some creature behind me I instantly spun around, hand on my hilt, ready to face whatever lay behind me. But there was nothing but another group of people, each pulling back from me quickly. My hand dropped from my sword as a child close to me was drawn back furtively. In a hushed and disgusted whisper I heard my newly appointed name, ". . monster. . ."

"Hatred!"

Suddenly I was running, my body bruised and battered. Air whistled through the holes of my ripped clothing. Looking behind myself I saw a few scattered red dots in the distance. This was accompanied by an angry scream, bitter snippets of expletives and the long disappointed howl of a dog. They were off my scent. Exhausted and relieved I dropped to my knees and wiped absentmindedly at the dried blood on my face. Finally. . I thought I would never escap-

I froze as a twig snapped behind me.

"Isolation!"

I knew I probably shouldn't, but with the all the confusion from before, everyone concerned with their own problems, I figured this was the best time for doing this privately. I had gone over it in my head at least a dozen times, but I still felt my heart jumping in my chest. The blood pounded so hard in my ears that I couldn't even hear the memorized words in my head anymore. I took a gulp and reached to knock at the door.

"What? That would never happen. No one is coming to ask me about love."

I paused, hand barely from the door. There was someone else in the room? I thought everyone had gone to bed. I knew I probably shouldn't, but I couldn't help but stand there and listen.

"Don't be so sure of that," I heard a familiar voice answer back, "I've been watching you for some time. . . I wouldn't be surprised if you were approached about it. . .tonight."

Suddenly my heart became still. That scheming- How the hell-! I burned and bristled as I imagined the smirk on that face. There was no way I'd be made a fool of by that bastard! Just as I was about to wrench open the door and start the beating I heard a soft laugh.

"I don't know if you've been watching close enough. There's nothing shared between us. No intimate little trifles that you insist we share. I think you need to open your eyes a little more. There has never been and never will be anything more than a companion relationship between us. What. . whatever made you think anything else?! I've never given any implication of wanting love between us. The idea is ridiculous. Whatever made you think I'd love someone like-"

I numbly stepped away from the door. I couldn't hear them anymore. My blood was rushing in my ears again, leaving the world in a deep silence as I traveled back to my room in the inn. As I glanced back, I saw the light go out beneath the door I had been standing by. Quietly, I opened my door and stepped into the darkness of my room.

"Ah . . . do you not enjoy the gift I have given you?"

Suddenly I was back in the bathroom, staggered against the wall and breathing raggedly from the force of the moments I'd lived. . . or did I relive them? I wasn't not too sure anymore. All I knew was that I had to get out of here. I had to get away. Grasping onto the side of the wall I pushed myself up gingerly from the wall and stepped up to the demon in the mirror.

"Take it back," I bite out, spitting the blood in my mouth on the floor.

The demon grinned slightly, its new flesh distorting awkwardly as it reached up and brushed away the coarse hair from its ear. "I'm afraid I can't hear you," he said through a mouthful of sharp teeth, "Can you speak a little louder?"

"Damn you, I said take it back!"

Bending back, the demon frowned darkly. The, waggling a finger in my face, the demon began to admonish me, "Now, now. . . that will not do at all. Look at all I've done for you; I've given you power you've only dreamed of. And what do I get in return? Nothing but malice. No. . . ," and then I heard a soft sing-song whisper directly in my ears, "I think you must be punished."

A sudden ripping pain spreads throughout me as my body seems to break and turn, twist and snap, shape and reform. Falling against the wall I watched through clouded eyes as my hand distorted in a haze and . . changed. This moment to observe was suddenly ripped away as I felt my head suddenly burst into a new blossom of pain. I let out a scream as I felt something like a thousand fine needles poke through my scalp all at once. Yet, as I tried to move my hand to my scalp I realized I couldn't lift my arm. It suddenly felt so much heavier, as if weights were hanging off my arms. My cries of alarm were abruptly swallowed by a loud, heavy laughter.

I gradually tried to lift my body off the floor to stare at the mirror. As I leaned myself heavily on the wall I turned my head toward the laughing demon in the mirror. The laughter got louder as confusion and alarm grew on my face.

Howling with dark humor in the mirror was no longer the distorted and demonic face of the monster. Now there laid a pale and youthful face, normal in all appearances.

It was my face.

"What. . . what have you done to me," I whispered, suddenly afraid to look at myself.

My reflection broke off laughing and glowered at me from behind narrowed eyes. "I have only given you what you always wanted. What you always envied and dreamed after. Now you must face the consequences."

A tremble suddenly wracked my body, " You. . you monster!"

A small, knowing smile crept on the demon's face, "No, my little one. I think you need to have a look in the mirror."

Roaring with anger I suddenly lunged at the mirror and drove a fist into the face of the grinning demon, shattering the mirror into fragments. The exertion of the movement on my drained body dropped me to the floor before the shards of glass. With a heavy huff I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing. Everything is okay. This is all a dream. . . just a dream.

Slowly I opened my heavy eyes and looked down onto the glass ridden floor.

I screamed.

.

.

.

Then I was awake. Breathing hard, I stared into the darkness of my room, clutching at the sheets. Slowly I tried to control my breathing, my eyes quickly adjusting to the dark. There was my sword, lying next to the chair where I'd left it. There were my clothes folded on the table by the window. I leaned forward as I felt the sweat cool on my back. It was always odd the first night in a new inn. We had traveled to who knows how many inns, but I could never shake the awkwardness of that first night.

Knowing I wouldn't fall back asleep for a while I swung my legs out of the bed and grabbed the towel the inn had provided off the table. Gingerly opening the door I poked my head out and looked down either direction of the hall. Even after a nightmare like that, I was still more worried by the idea that someone may have heard me scream.

Ducking quietly into the bathroom I shut the door and made for the bath. As I passed along, I suddenly came upon a mirror on the wall. I slowed to a halt and stared in the opposite direction for a moment. This was ridiculous! Was I afraid of some stupid reflection? With a bit of embarrassment I turned angrily at the mirror.

I gasped at what I saw and dropped my towel.

There, staring back at me was the lily white face I remembered. I reached up a shaking hand and gently pulled at my cheek. My reflection did the same. I reached up and touched the soft locks on my head and drew whorls around my eyes. I cried out slightly in delight when I saw my reflection do the same. As my heart filled with glee I turned to wake the others.

"Only in your dreams."

I froze as I heard the whisper. Had I really even heard it? It was so faint and fleeting that perhaps I only imagined it. But. . . . Gradually I turned back to the mirror, again feeling a growing fear swelling in my chest. It couldn't be. . . there's no way life would be this cruel.

"Welcome back."

I screamed.

.

.

.

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So yea. . . . I don't feel like saying much 'cause I know I haven't updated in forever. A fit of randomness is the only reason I even finished this. I love to write, but I've no time for these things sometimes. But I started working on this a long time ago and it had been bugging me to finish it. These stories. . .well. . this one is obviously different from the first on quite a variety of levels. I'm trying to keep the main character more obscure. This one I think was VERY obvious. If you didn't get it, perhaps you don't know enough about the Slayers series or perhaps I'm just that good.  Yea. . . right.

Anywho, that's my note and that's that. If you want to reply, do so. If not, I don't mind. I just had fun writing this really and I'm glad I finally finished this installment. Perhaps more will come, perhaps not.

To all thee well. And have a Merry Christmas. :P


	3. gReEd

SeVeN

Shadow Knight

Chapter 3: gReEd

Disclaimer: All ownership of characters and series belong to Hajime Kanzaka et al.

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"You can't have it."

Those were the first words that I remember hearing when I was younger. I guess they're what made the deepest impression on me at that age. You know how they say that the stuff you experience when you're younger influences who you are when you're older? Well, maybe there is some basis for that. . .

I suppose I should have seen the signs even at my earliest stages. Every shiny new bauble I saw, regardless of costs, had to be mine. Every new sugary confection that I laid my eyes upon, only this was the answer to my hunger. Every object I laid my eyes upon that filled me with an unquenchable desire, burning a hole in both my pocket and my mind. There was no object I desired that I didn't try to get.

I wanted it all.

But this was simply a phase, a materialistic need, a mere catering to the corporal part of my being. It was when I got a little older, when I crept into to the part of our house I wasn't supposed to that I found something much more enticing. It was a room I was forbidden to enter. The flame atop the candle that I held in my hand flickered ominously as I stood on the edge of the dark room. Watching my flame waver precariously I contemplated the words my sister had told me whenever my eyes lingered a little too long on the door to the room. She warned me that I was never to go into the room as there were far too many dangers for a little girl to encounter. She told me that what was in the room could make or destroy me and that I shouldn't even think about it. At the time I thought her words were simply a threat against any deviant acts on my part. Yet as I get older I can't help but wonder. . . was she right?

Taking a step into the darkness, my tiny flame was consumed, a tiny beacon staving off the darkness. Yet, despite the growing childish fear spreading throughout my belly, my concerns were brushed aside as I felt something surrounding me, eddying about the room in intangible and invisible wisps. I felt something that was beyond me and yet a part of me, consuming me from within and without. My whole body still shudders in pleasure at the memory, gooseflesh racing up and down my arms. As I stood there, a small body cocooned within the unfathomable, I closed my eyes and felt a new hunger rise up within me. My fingers ached as I reached out, trying to grasp at the ephemeral strings tugging at my appetite.

When my fingers brushed against something before me I opened my eyes and drew my candle close, the flame jumping about to light a stained and curling page. My eyes glazed carefully over the smooth calligraphy that graced the pages in archaic words, letters looped together in black ink. My fingers tracing the ancient text, I mumbled the curious chant with an unsure voice. As the last word left my lips I suddenly felt a rush within me, as if my soul raced forward to my fingers, each tip burned by an unseen flame.

Even as my candle was snuffed out from having fallen from my startled hand, my eyes could only fill with wonder as a thousand specters of light drew forward toward my tingling fingertips. A small ball of light began to form as I watched on, the mass swelling before condensing into a tight compact sphere, spinning lightly above my aching hand. I chirped with pleasure as I found the light followed the motion of my hand. Then, recalling that the light had come from reading the words, I turned back to the book, motioning the light toward the top of the page. As I read the elaborately penned word "Lightening" a familiar quiet smile grew on my face. The pit of my desires began to overflow with a burning need as I found place in my heart for the previous yearnings that filled me when I stepped into the room.

I wanted power.

After that there was nothing that could stop me. Albeit the threat of my sister discovering my newly found activity deterred me several times, the need pulsed within me. My first contact with the unknown in that room had awakened something within me. I could see things I didn't see before. I felt a pull of energy within every living thing, like a steady hum that appealed incorrigibly to my mind. Everything called out to me to simply grasp at it and take it. And I did.

I had memorized every page within the book, conjuring up all kinds of new delights to placate my insatiable hunger. . .but there was one page left, impressed with a million invisible locks to keep readers out. When my eyes stared at the blank page before me I would normally have thought that this was the end. But my newfound eyes had seen the dangerous puzzle before me and I bit my lip in anticipation. It took days and weeks, the threat of the book succumbing to the flames held within a trap or simply being found with the incriminating piece of evidence made my movements through the puzzle slow and agonizing. Then came the day when I unraveled the last knot. Words gradually began to grow along the page, letters looping in and out along the page. While the text was written similarly to the other pages in the book, the words covering this page were written in a deep, dark red, a color reminiscent of dried blood.

Suddenly there I was with a power greater than I had ever known pulsating before me along the page. My eyes lingered carefully on the words at the top, warning readers one last time to be wary. But I didn't need the words on the page to warn me of that. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I saw the page _breathing_, thin wisps of power reaching out from the page and grazing my hand, curling gently around my wrists. A doubt suddenly spread throughout me. Perhaps this wasn't smart, maybe it wasn't safe. Maybe I should listen to my sister. . .

But as I looked down at the page, I felt the same ache in my hands that I had felt before when I had stepped into the room with the book. It was the same ache that burned within me whenever I wanted something. Laying the pulsing book before me I gathered myself to my full height and began chanting the ancient words, invoking the curling strands of power toward my hands in a chaotic maelstrom of light. I watched in wonder as all of this power, merely bare whispers in the air before, condensed and threaded between my fingers into a pulsating sphere before me. It was as if the collected power before me was a being, not of this world and yet composed of it. Holding this much power at one time released a sudden calm within me, the hunger within my soul was temporarily pacified. Staring at the well-ordered chaos in my hands I flung the last words on the page into the air with a relish.

As if reflecting my enthusiasm the powerful construction flared brightly before leaving my hands and spiraling toward a far off cliff before me. It was as I watched the sphere race away that I felt the drain of conjuring such a feat crash upon me. Sinking to my knees I felt physically and emotionally weak. That was it? All that power gathered and within my hands . . . only to spin away into the horizon?

That's when I heard it.

It started out like a low rumble, a monotonous hum that quickly became a fierce and vibrating boom and that made me grasp at the ground for stability. I watched in awe as the pebbles around me jumped and skipped around at the reverberating force. Throwing my face upward to look toward the path of the sphere I watched as one crimson beam of light after another jutted from the cliff side, cracking through the rock. Suddenly my vision was flooded with the light, the power gathered from the chant swelling into a larger sphere that consumed the cliff. It grew and grew until it seemed to reach its limit and then rapidly fell in within itself, sending a pulse of power outward that washed over everything in its circumference, like a wave of wildfire burning through a field. As the wave crashed into me I felt myself flung backwards, driven into the ground until I skidded to a stop some feet away.

When I came to again I sat up and gazed at the land before me. Where there was once a cliff there was a large crater, the ground blackened and smoking, belying the future beliefs of any further plant or animal life existing there. Standing to my feet I surveyed the path of destruction that I had left, a small swell of fear rising inside me. This was the price of power? I felt my appetite for any further search for such things waver. But as I watched the wisps of red light spread throughout the sky once more I brushed aside these childish fears. This power needed a wielder, an owner to direct its fearsome destruction and chaos. It needed me just as much as I needed it. I felt a smile tug on my lips as the hunger within me grew even more pronounced, screaming for more.

From that day on I knew that I would pursue this power. To this day I still do. I have become one of the most feared people of the land. As I had learned before, I knew there was a price to this power. Even now, looking at my loyal band of companions as we settle around the table I know there's a small grimace of fear that contorts their expressions whenever they gather around me. Although it hurts a bit to realize this, the desire for the next level removes this from my mind. I suppose this is what makes me so desirable to one race and detestable to another. This pursuit would also probably explain why I've been dragged into some of the most unusual and compromising situations, each new adventure yielding even more dangerous adversaries and lethal results. Perhaps this too explained the growing gap between some of my friends and myself.

While I had proven to them that their safe being was indeed of concern, I knew (if they hadn't discovered this for themselves already) that this was simply a secondary interest. While my materialistic desires may have displayed some manifestation of the hunger burning within me, it was the want, the _need_, for more power that drove my actions. The path of destruction I left behind in nearly every adventure was a marked reminder for those who would ever try to hinder me in my pursuit.

I'm not naive to the costs that come from associating with such desires. The threats on my life and of my friends were obvious signs to what comes as a result of wielding great power and the search for it. I had seen great men turned into monsters, possessed by the very things they tried to control. I had almost witnessed the very annihilation of the world at the hands of a man who was overpowered by a being whose power he had sought. I have watched the transformation of rational individuals into wild and bestial creatures, driven mad by pursuit.

But these people were all fools.

They had allowed themselves to become satiated at some level, reaching out only to obtain power for some mundane purpose. I was not like these people. My desire for power was beyond some simple instrumental use. My pursuit of power was a way of _living_. If I stopped pursuing it I fear there'd be nothing left to live for. Sure, one may point out the qualities of love and friendship, but these are temporal things; such things succumb to time and fade away like ashes in the wind. What I sought was something beyond this world. I wanted something more than what a simple life could provide. It wasn't simply obtaining some power that drove me like those other fools. I was driven by the insatiable need for it.

And what I desired I would get.

The warnings from my companions on this subject are always regarded with a subtle air of disdain. They cannot know the depth of this need, this hunger that burns within me. Even as I hear the pleading voice of my youngest companion complaining about the destruction I had left on our last escapade I feel a frown grow on my face. It is no matter. I know that the desire for power within me would never change.

It doesn't matter to me where the power comes from or what the consequences were that resulted from wielding it. All I knew about power was that I needed it and I'd be damned if anyone would stop me from getting it. I felt the same thoughts run through my head that had on the day I stood on the edge of the crater, observing the destruction of the cliff.

Wherever there is power I will find it.

I will learn it.

I will possess it.

And may heaven help the creature that gets in my way.

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Well, if you don't know who this is I'd be a little surprised, although I must admit that the character is probably a bit out of character. Still, I suppose any true portrayal of the characters would result in some parody of the seven deadly sins. And hey, doesn't evil bring out the darker and unknown sides of us? Okay, so maybe that was cheesy and unnecessary, but ah well. :)

Anywho, thank you guys for reviewing thus far. I appreciate it and I hope you guys enjoyed this latest installment. I shall try to update again sooner but I can't make any promises as life has so many other demands. And as such I must bid you all adieau until next time. :P


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